China Agri News Week 31, 2020
This is the news overview of week 31 from the agricultural team of the Netherlands Embassy in Beijing.
Major Investments for Fresh Produce Retailers and Online-to-Online Grocery Business
Xingsheng Selected, a fresh produce chain that operates several small community stores across 13 provinces in China, is set to raise approximately US$800 million in new funding, as consumer demand for fresh produce and specialty retail continues to grow as a result of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
The company’s fundraising development comes as China’s online-to-offline (O2O) grocery businesses have grown during the Covid-19 outbreak, as the consumer looks for contactless, convenient ways to shop. Earlier this week, Beijing-based online grocery platform Missfresh also raised US$495 million in a new investment led by CICC Capital, with participation from Tencent, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Tiger Global Management and other investors (source: Fruitnet).
Short News:
- On July 24, a new outbreak of African swine fever was discovered in Jiangjin District, Chongqing. The pigs were illegally transferred from other provinces (source: Farmers’ Daily, July 25th).
- In the first half of 2020, poverty-stricken counties nearly sold 100 billion yuan worth of agricultural goods on Alibaba’s website Taobao. 6 billion of the total amount were sales through live broadcasting as more than 10 thousand new farmers signed up for live broadcasting accounts (source: Farmers’ Daily, July 24th).
- On July 27, 2020, China SAMR opened the second draft of Food Labeling Supervision Administrative Measures for public feedback. Compared with the first draft issued in November 2019, the latest version details the labeling requirements for special food newly includes the labeling obligation for products using reconstituted milk as raw materials and clarifies some regulation items. Any comments should be sent back before Aug. 26, 2020 (source: Chemlinked).